Among the young generation of Brazilian masters of the bandolim, Daniel Migliavacca stands out as a musician and composer who has managed to unite virtuosity and compositional creativity in instrumental music that both pays it dues to choro tradition and renews the genre by adding works of his own to the standard repertoire, every piece displaying his terrific instrumental and improvisational skills. Evidence is Daniel Migliavacca's cd from 2009, appropiately titled 'Bandolim'.
Daniel Migliavacca was born in São Paulo 1984 and is based in Curitiba since 2000. He began his musical studies playing cavaquinho at age 12, in 2003 he began to devote himself to the bandolim and instrumental music, especially choro. After finishing a course in 2003 in computer science, he spent most of 2004 living in Montreal, Canada where he definitely chose the music and the bandolim. Since 2003, he attended several workshops and rodas de choro and in 2006 and 2007 he formed the duo “Nó de Pinho” alongside guitarist João Egashira having performed in many festivals around Brazil. In 2006, he won first place as best instrumentalist in the “Prêmio Nabor Pires Camargo” contest. In 2009, he performed the “Suíte Retratos” by Radamés Gnattali in its original version as guest soloist of the Chamber Orchestra of Curitiba. Also in 2009, he released his first solo CD 'Bandolim' dedicated to his chosen instrument and featuring several guest appearances by Rogério Souza, Alessandro Penezzi, Rogério Caetano, Toninho Carrasqueira, Pedro Amorim , Ricardo Herz, a.o. In 2011, he released the CD “Divertimento” in partnership with the pianist and harpsichordist Elizabeth Fadel and with guest appearance by Toninho Ferragutti and Yamandú Costa. - More info on Daniel Migliavacca's career (in Portuguese only) at his official website, click here
The repertoire of the 'Bandolim' CD has seven compositions by Migliavacca: "Vida boa", "Espinhoso","De bandolim pra bandolim", "Rindo à Toa", "Armando a confusão", "Choro doce" and "Perfumada". The remaining five tracks are arrangements of instrumentals by Jacob do Bandolim ("A ginga do mané"), Dominguinhos ("Fuga para o Nordeste"), Cláudio Menandro ("Cantiga de grilo"), Zequinha de Abreu ("Tico-tico no fubá") and Rogério Souza ("Conversa fiada"). The music is performed flawless and has Migliavacca's bandolim as lead voice accompanied by a skilled ensemble with changing guest appearance as mentioned above. Every tune chosen for the cd catches the attention of the listener and calls on repeated listening to enjoy the excetional skills of Migliavacca and his fellow musicians, higly recommended! - To give you an impression of the music on the disc, I'll insert a couple of uploaded videos featuring performance of some of the featured tunes. Here is first a performance of Migliavacca's "De bandolim pra bandolim" from a TV presentation, Migliavacca is accompanied by Vinícius Chamorro on violão 7 cordas
From the release presentation show of the 'Bandolim' CD at Sesc da Esquina, Curitiba - 18/10/2009, here is Migliavacca's rendition of Dominguinhos' "Fuga para o Nordeste" accompanied by Julião Boêmio (Cavaco), Vinícius Chamorro (violão 7 cordas), Vina Lacerda & Dênis Mariano (Percussão)
Finally, from the same TV presentation as above, here is Migliavacca's arrangement of "Tico-tico no fubá" accompanied by Vinícius Chamorro on violão 7 cordas and Denis Mariano on pandeiro - enjoy!
The 'Bandolim' CD is available for download in mp3 from Amazon and iTunes, and you have the opportunity to listen to some of the tracks at Migliavacca's MySpace profile,here
According to Migliavacca's official website he can be heard in live-performance in Holland (Den Haag and Amsterdam) during June, he is accompanied by pianist Elizabeth Fadel, look out for further info in local media or check the agenda updates at Migliavacca's website. --- Jo
